Everything you've ever wanted to know about miscarriage

In summer 2015, Mark Zuckerberg posted a slightly unusual update to his 33 million Facebook friends. He and his doctor wife announced that they were overjoyed to be expecting their first child, a girl.

But Zuckerberg didn’t stop there. He chose to tell his followers about the rocky road to pregnancy - a story about everything we don’t normally mention. The couple suffered three miscarriages over several years of trying to become parents.

Four pregnan­cies resulted in one child.

Stillbirths and miscarriage in Australia2:03

Facts about the rate of stillbirths and miscarriage in Australia.

January 4th 2017

2 years ago

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What is a miscarriage?

A miscarriage is a pregnancy that stops before week 24 of the pregnancy when the fertilised egg stops developing or the foetus dies in the womb. You’ll most often notice that you’re miscarrying because you get pain and vaginal bleeding.

Miscarriage is one of the most common complications in early pregnancy. It is assumed that only half of all fertilised eggs will result in viable pregnancies. In other words, miscarriage is as common as a successful pregnancy.

Most miscarriages happen in the first few weeks after fertilisation, up to the point before your next period is due. Since it’s so common for these early pregnancies to end in miscarriage, you can save yourself a great deal of disappointment by waiting to take the test until after the point you’d expected to have your period. With every passing week, the chances that everything will be fine become higher and higher.

All about the fear

Fear of miscarriage is the reason why pregnant women often choose to wait three months before telling people about their pregnancy. The idea behind this secrecy is primarily to spare the pregnant woman in case anything goes wrong. It’s bad enough to lose a longed-for baby without also having to ring around friends and family to call off the happy news.

Unfortunately, the result of this secrecy is that many couples feel there’s something shameful about miscarriage. Zuckerberg describes miscarriage as a lonely experience: ‘Most people don’t discuss miscarriages because you worry your problems will distance you or reflect upon you – as if you’re defective or did some­thing to cause this. So, you struggle on your own.’

Zuckerberg isn’t alone in the feelings he describes. In a study published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, nearly half of those who had been through a miscarriage reported feeling that they were somehow to blame or having a sense that they had done something wrong. They felt alone and ashamed.

Causes of miscarriage

It makes for sad reading, not least because self-blame is caused by a relatively widespread misunderstanding of the causes of miscarriage. In reality, miscarriage is rarely a result of misdeeds by the mother (or father).

The most common cause of miscarriage is a serious chromosomal abnormality in the foetus; that is, there’s an error in the genetic code that is already determined at conception. Forget the boozing, unhealthy eating or social smoking you indulged in before you knew you were pregnant.

Miscarriage is the body’s control mechanism and its way of ensuring that we have healthy children who can live good lives. It can be horribly painful to suffer a miscarriage like this, but it’s actually your body doing right by you.

When should you worry?

Only when you’ve had two or three in a row should you consider inves­tigating whether there’s something in the mother (or father) that is causing the miscarriages. Before that, it is considered quite normal. Where women experience repeated miscarriages, the cause can be anything from anatom­ical aberrations and hormonal disorders to autoimmune diseases and hereditary blood conditions. These are conditions nobody can be blamed for, but which can hopefully be treated.

A lot of people may think it’s too intimate and compromising to talk about these kinds of experiences in public spaces, but Mark Zuckerberg still had an important message. Openness about miscarriage is important in order to make it clear just how common it actually is. There’s nothing shameful about a miscarriage and it’s usually nobody’s fault.

The three-month rule we mentioned earlier was intended to protect women against the pain of telling others about the miscarriage, but perhaps this rule does more harm than good. It perpetuates misunderstandings and stigma instead of normalising and creating acceptance. The result is that many women are left feeling isolated, with an unjustified sense of shame and guilt, at a time when they’re most in need of warmth and consideration from the people around them. So, let’s start talking to each other!